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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27751750">the catch</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/arataka/pseuds/arataka'>arataka</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Mandalorian (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Episode: s02e05 The Mandalorian, Gen, Good Parent Din Djarin, dins like Nooo i dont wanna be a dad!!! and then unknowingly becomes a dad, ft. din not knowing anything abt jedi despite being the main chara of a sw show, very sarcastic here. din hates things but also loves things. he is weird</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 20:48:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,008</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27751750</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/arataka/pseuds/arataka</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>din hates catch. the book on parenthood cara sends him insists that he plays catch. ahsoka tano makes him play what is <i>essentially</i> jedi catch.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV) &amp; Din Djarin, Din Djarin &amp; Cara Dune</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>279</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the catch</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>1) i do not know much about the sw universe. i've watched all movies and remember them in varying amounts but i've watched all of mandalorian. pls forgive any lore mistakes. thank u<br/>2) uhh something something i hope my din characterization is good.... thank u soo much for reading i hope you enjoy!!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The red light blinks at him persistently, insistently, rather blinding if you ask him. It <em> should’ve </em> stopped and <em> should’ve </em> been marked as read in his comms system, especially since he promptly closed the message after hearing the word <em> “Dad”. </em></p><p>If he leaves the light alone, blinking on until the end of eternity or whenever the <em> Razor Crest </em> finally decides to die on him, the kid would become intrigued by it. It’ll become a habit, identical to his fondness of that unscrewable ball fixed atop one of the control system’s levers. He could already imagine the kid waking up, staring and <em> sitting </em>on the panel as he’s in the pilot's seat, staring and gawking at the red blinking light in awe. There’s nothing special about this blinking light, Din would assure him, you’ve seen enough red blinking lights. Din has let the child witness too many red blinking lights.</p><p>He clicks it. A little holographic video of Cara Dune flickers above the now not blinking light. She is smiling, as though the pre-recorded message knew he would close the recording then succumb to the guilt of both the unread notification and the kid’s possible future interest in said notification sooner or later. </p><p>“Mando. I hope you are doing well after… mhm… everything.”</p><p><em> Everything </em> would be an understatement.</p><p>“After all that stuff about the kid being inducted into your own personal clan or something like that, I thought… you are a <em> dad </em>now, right? Wow.” He is glad the transmission is not live; he knows that though the helmet protects him, she could sense an eye roll from a mile away. “So since you’re the kid’s father now… I attached something to the message.” She winks. “I hope you like it. See you soon, Mando.”</p><p>Attached is a digital transcript of a book titled, <em> Fatherhood. </em> Short and sweet. He swipes through a few pages before realizing it is dozens, maybe more than a hundred pages long, and tucks it in the very back of the <em> Razor Crest’s </em>files because he does not have the time nor the need to read a hundred page book on how to be a good father. </p><p>Later, when the child shuffles into the co-pilot seat, Din unscrews the ball for him. He shuffles through the ship’s kitchen to prepare two servings of rations and pours the child’s ration into a smaller bowl so he tricks himself into thinking he ate more. He carries the child up to the makeshift swinging crib he made and talks about some random fantastical story about a man who slain a dragon even though the child seems to prefer picturing Din as the hero instead.</p><p>
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</p><p>Little holographic Marshal Cara Dune beams at him. “Did you read the book yet?” </p><p>Right. The book. Titled <em> Fatherhood, </em>written by a man whose name Din does not know nor does he care enough to know. He hasn’t opened it within the past month, ever since he received Cara’s transmission and stopped when he saw a section about playing catch with your son or something. “Yes.”</p><p>“Liar.”</p><p>“I don’t need a book to tell me how to be a father, Cara.”</p><p><em> “Mando.” </em>Her tone is harsher now, and if Din could see anything other than her shoulders up through the transmission he imagines her hands on her hips as she glares at him. If they were in the ship together, she would’ve nudged him physically and verbally until he eventually opens up the book and treats it as more than a few megabytes taking up storage space. </p><p>She takes his sigh in response as agreeing to agree with Marshal Cara Dune. It was very hard to disagree with Marshal Cara Dune when Din can barely overcome her strength in a casually intense arm-wrestling match unless the kid randomly starts to close her airways. For… some reason. It still baffles him. </p><p>But the kid cannot speak Basic, nor can Din- despite being able smoothly communicate in numerous languages- speak baby talk. Or Jedi talk. Maybe Jedis had their own secret language and it sounded like baby talk. </p><p>“See you sometime,” Cara says with a wave. “Have fun with your son, Mando.”</p><p>He would argue. Din would respond by saying that he is only his father by creed and only until he completes his mission— though didn’t all fathers have a mission to see their child grow? </p><p>What constitutes being a father, he wonders. Was it being kind? Would that mean Greef Karga is his father, because he is generous? Weird. Greef Karga tried killing him once. Then again, he can’t say it’s much different when it comes to him and the child. </p><p>He would argue, but the words get caught in his throat, in his voice modulator, and Cara flickers out of transmission before they untangle themselves. </p><p>
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</p><p>Ahsoka Tano knows one other being of the same species as the child.</p><p><em> —Knew. </em>Of course the guy had to up and die. </p><p>But if the Jedi were the child’s family, and Din was tasked to deliver the child to said family, it makes sense to him that Ahsoka takes him under her care. She is a Jedi, after all. Or was. Or is still. All he knows is that those light swords she wields means she is a Jedi. Something about wielding the Force or whatever it is means she is a Jedi. </p><p>He was pacing while Ahsoka Tano and the child had their meeting, his thoughts flooding with every single incident he’s run into- which the child consequently runs into as well, hiding in his burlap bag. There was the killer robot, the giant spider and its big-though-not-equally-giant spider babies, the frog eggs— <em> Stars, </em>he’s allowed him to eat far too many frog eggs. But when Ahsoka and the child sit with him, she says nothing about their travels together. Inside, he’s still pacing. </p><p>Ahsoka Tano cannot train the child- the <em> kid- </em>Grogu. Grogu, he reminds himself. What a funny little name. (He forgets that his full name rhymes. Maybe one day he’ll tell him that he was born as Din Djarin and Grogu will laugh very very hard.)</p><p>Ahsoka Tano cannot train the child because he is too attached. There is an attachment, she says, where Grogu values Din to a point where she fears corruption. She fears fear, because fear leads to selfishness and selfishness leads to corruption. Though if the child does not see him anymore, wouldn’t that attachment be severed? His head tilts at the revelation and his helmet moves in tow, bewildered though he has risked death over and over for Grogu’s sake, and would do it again until they part.</p><p>Rocks do not work with Ahsoka’s game of Jedi catch. Who in their right mind plays catch with a bunch of rocks? The ball the kid loves so dearly finds escape from the depths of Din’s pocket, and he holds it out in the middle of his palm. </p><p>Grogu beckons it to him, and the Force wills it to happen. </p><p>Good job, he finds himself exclaiming without hesitation. Good job. I knew you could do it, he says. </p><p>He is so full of pride after watching the kid do something so simple to Ahsoka, yet it means the world to him. Din did not know about the Force— has never needed the Force until the Client beckoned him with a container full of beskar. All he’s ever needed was his rifle that can shoot and electrocute at the same time and that is all very cool but watching Grogu move things with his mind and his tiny little hands is even more cool to him. </p><p>Perhaps this is what Cara’s book meant when it comes to playing catch with your son.</p><p>
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</p><p>He stares up at him with his big eyes and his tiny hands and his wide smile. His own hands dwarf the child’s, but he latches onto just one finger so tightly as if he never wanted to let go. </p><p>Yes. A deal was a deal. Din would help free the town from the magistrate, Ahsoka will train the child in return. Din would give Ahsoka the child and she would train him, Ahsoka would help him.</p><p>Yes. Din cradles him on one thigh though Grogu’s swaddle swings beside him. He rubs circles into the softness of his little hand, he makes sure Grogu’s potato sack of a robe is all neatly folded with no creases, he checks to see if Grogu’s hair is neat even if Ahsoka can barely see the five short white hairs. He takes so long, stalls for so long that Ahsoka Tano strolls up to his landing. He will say that Grogu’s grip on his finger is so very tight, he decides, if Ahsoka bothers to ask.</p><p>She does not ask.</p><p>“You’re like a father to him.”</p><p>She does not take the child either.</p><p>There is a difference between someone telling you that you are his father, and someone telling you that you <em>seem </em>like his father. The former is pure obligation, but the latter is from his own actions. The cradling, the clothes-fixing, the good jobs and the high fives. </p><p>
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</p><p>The text flickers into visibility as he opens the book file once more. Might as well commit if he’s already falling into this rabbit hole, he tells himself. There is a section within the text about establishing a safe and encouraging communication with your child.</p><p>But he cannot speak to Grogu the way Ahsoka does. He is not a Jedi, and he assumes that if the kid is capable of some sort of telepathy, he would’ve heard it by now. Or maybe it’s the beskar that deflects it. </p><p>Grogu cannot speak Basic. Din cannot speak baby talk (he’s deduced that Jedi Talk is likely not a language that exists, though one Jedi who speaks Basic is not much to go by), and he doubts there’s anything about deciphering baby speech and muttering in any planetary library. </p><p>At the next pitstop they take for rations and maybe a possible bounty, he picks up something for Grogu to use as a way of communication. The vendor hands Din a bunch of paper and a handful of crayons— fit for a child, she says as she nods towards the one sitting wide-eyed in his bag. He’s stopped bothering to tell people that the <em> “child” </em>is twice his age. </p><p>Grogu does not write in the papers. Din assumes he would have to teach him Basic somewhere down the road, if they ever get the chance. He draws instead. He laughs happily in the hallway outside the cockpit as he doodles along the pages, pressing the crayons onto paper so hard Din has to advise him otherwise.</p><p>One day he glances at him while he’s drawing— this time in the co-pilot’s seat after he gave him a board as a steady surface to draw on as he sits. He hovers from behind the chair, staring down at a fully-colored page.</p><p>It’s crude. Grogu has only three fingers on each hand, anyway. He can make out a small green figure and a taller grey figure holding hands. </p><p>“That’s us?” </p><p>The kid nods. He shoves the paper into his grasp, babbling on about something his translator can’t decipher. </p><p>He wants to say that beskar is more of a silver, not grey, but Grogu does not have silver crayons nor does Din think he really cares about the distinction. </p><p>
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</p><p>The next time he gives Cara a lift to some-planet-or-other, she runs into the drawing head first before walking into the cockpit. It’s hung up in the hallway, straight across the bunk. </p><p>“That drawing— the kid made it?”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>She laughs. It is not of mean intention, more awe because it only proves her right, as she always is. </p><p>“It’s you guys. Right?”</p><p>There is a reason he decided to hang it up on the wall across from the bunk, where if you look straight ahead you’d see it and there’s no direction to look when inside the bunk other than forward. </p><p>“Yeah.” </p>
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